Late Summer for Hitler in Madison

I was up in Madison, Wisconsin over the weekend and so were the Neo Nazis or whatever it is the brown shirts are calling themselves these days.

I call the sexually confused victims of child abuse in search of authority figures in a wolrd they find frigtening because of the perceived lack of order. But who am I to judge?

Now, since I have a shaved head and a goatee, I felt a bit uncomfortable cavorting about the mall around the Capitol, thinking someone might mistake big ol' neurotic me for a Nazi sympathizer. Then I realized that in a college town, the look is as common as dreadlocks and birkenstocks, which seemed to be a look of choice of those present heckling the boys in brown.

By the way, the wannabe Hitlers were up on the steps behind a chain link fence as there detractors detracted from a good 50 yards away and a bevy of black-clad cops in riot gear looked bored.

Who shows up to yell at nutty Neo Nazis anyway? What's the point in taking them seriously?

I suppose you could make the case that we owe it to the memories of those the Nazis slaughtered to shout down even the most ludicrous gathering.

Yet, what would happen if no one showed up? Isn't that what these dysfunctionals rally want anyway - the attention?

And saying you're against Nazis when there are plenty of other things in the world to rail against right now seems more than a bit pointless. Saying you wanted to uses a squirt gun filled with urine (as one charming coed claimed was her plan) is almost as nuts as the Nazis, too.

Then I thought of the perfect plan - instead of getting all angry and yelling, why not use humor to battle the bellicose?

Have a rally where no one faces the sexually ambiguous brown shirts, but instead stages a local version of Springtime for Hitler from The Producers - the more flamoboyantly gay and over the top the better.

In fact, every time, anywhere Neo Nazis gather, the production number should be the required counter demonstration, where each rally tries it tip the last with its fabulousness. Have a chorus line of Hitlers in fishnet stockings kicking up their high heels.

The Neos won't know what to make of it. And it will be more fun than making signs with magic marker and recycling ideas from prior protests.

August oblivion

TS Eliot and Chicago weather to the contrary, April ain’t the cruelest month. My vote goes to August, or at least this one.

Take today - the weather is perfect, not that usual dog’s breath the middle of this month typically holds. Of course, I’m sitting inside typing which should give clue as to why I feel this way.

August is a tease, giving way to school and to fall, which means eventually it’s winter, and I hate the perpetual gray that is the Midwest from November through May.

This time of year you notice the days growing shorter, which means time fading away. And the damn yellow jackets want to your outdoor food, and the spiders bite you just above the ass (hey, they like my back fat. It’s a delicacy for insects.)

Then again, you might be as oblivious as a lot of the folks I know. Example: I shaved off my goatee this past week. It took two days before anyone at work said anything. One young woman, a master of the back pedal, said she was so used to seeing it on my mug (I had the beard for six months) she assumed it was there.

A couple weeks ago I thought it preposterous that wacky terrorists could smuggle in three laced Gatorade bottles into an airplane bathroom, leave them there, then ignite them with an iPod without anyone noticing Arabs behaving oddly. Or how anyone would hire someone as creepy as that Jon Benet suspect to teach and not suspect him of ulterior motives.

But because of my goatee experience I see how easy it is to not be noticed. Since I live alone, this scares me. If I had an accident it would be days before anyone would think to look for me. Good thing I don’t have a cat, or I’d be a 220 pound meal.

But I digress on a Sunday afternoon. Back to being disappointed with August.

I heard on the radio yesterday, on one of those flashback shows, about a Bruce Springsteen concert that I attended at Soldier Field, a monumental 4.5 hour show -- a show from 1984. If you were born at that gathering now you can legally drink.

Of course, I was only six at the time. It was my first concert. I got to stay up way past my bed time. I went with my cute baby-sitter and all her girlfriends. Springsteen pulled me on stage for Dancing in the Dark. I was a cute kid.

No, it’s not funny how time slips away, and that’s why August is cruel.

Oh sure, there’s football to look forward to, and the slim hope of the White Sox repeating as World Series champs, but sometimes it all seems like Groundhog Day, with the annual festivals, and the leaves falling and then its Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

I should stop my bitching. It’s just because I don’t have a lake home where I could sit on my dock and get drunkenly wistful on a perfectly fine day like today.

King for a minute - but even a king can't help the White Sox

For about a minute I was King of Ancient Egypt, the Main Man of Mesopotamia.

Then the Field Museum docent took my powers away.

Being a man of monumental concerns, I was going to use my juice to banish all Major League Baseball teams whose names end in the letter S or which are red teams, thereby giving the White Sox the repeat World Series title. Looks as if its the only way that’s going to happen.

Sure it was a petty wish, but I feel like I am one of the White Sox right now -- doing well, but not as well as I could be, not really making any progress against the Tigers, some Twins breathing down my neck (OK, that’s a wish, not a reality), underachieving, under appreciated, and with gas going to $4 a gallon signs of a bright future dimming with the August sun.

So it was nice to be the Sun King, if only because a kindly old lady talking about a very old, very heavy tomb took a shine to my bald head and anointed me, if only for demonstration purposes.

I learned that they had better paint way back before Jesus. And, as ruler of a desert empire, I could have somebody killed for merely stepping on my shadow. I thought it just meant six more weeks of winter.

While the above was in another of the myriad maze-y halls, I was at the Field to see the King Tut exhibit, which was a bit misleading as the famous sarcophagus death mask which was the hit of the show back in the 70s when Steve Martin wrote the song wasn’t along this time.

Still, all that was on display proved to me that as long as there has been civilization there have been yuppies. Perhaps the original conspicuous consumers, the ruling class of Egypt loved its goodies.

We also have them to thank for monotheism, and look how well that is turning out. Actually, Tut’s dad got rid of all the gods but the Sun Chip, probably to cut through the bullshit red tape and bureaucracy of polytheism, to say nothing of consolidating and tightening the reins of power - sort of like the Yankees try to do through free agency every season.

Tut’s dad died when the boy king was but nine years old and his uncles and the toy makers convinced him to bring back that old time religion, which, being nine, he did.

Tut - I bet he would have got teased a lot with a name like that, which looks even funnier in hieroglyphics. But being king has it perks, one big one, along with the “don’t tread on my shadow” policy being you can’t be ridiculed.

Which was good for Tut, who also apparently looked like Boy George, which, even in ancient times, was not thought of as handsome. The National Geographic types say Tut died when he was but 19, so maybe looks really can kill.

Actually they think he died from an infected broken leg. They ruled out the crushed vertebrae and ribs. Those were probably football injuries.

Tut took a lot of his stuff with him into the afterlife, because the Egyptians believed that bumper stick about he who has the most toys wins - in heaven, even.

I like that they put little dolls in the tombs, which were slaves for you in the hereafter, doing chores so you could just hang out with the Sun God at his pool. Little games went with, too, games made only for you in the dead zone.

Of course, your internal organs would be in their own golden coffins - but for your brain, which was removed through your nose, which sounds really messy.

But who needs a brain when your dead? You’re in a state of bliss, so you don’t need to think about anything.

Which is why I am surprised Hollywood chuckle heads like Madonna and Tom Cruise have yet to discover Egyptology. Maybe Helena Bonham Carter, who because her homeland in a small, incestuous island, must be an ancestor of the English archaeologist who rediscovered Tut’s tomb, could give them a talking to.

Or someone could slip them some Earth, Wind and Fire albums.